Final Results

Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 28 March 2001 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2000 London, 28 March 2001: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc is pleased to announce preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2000. Highlights * Turnover: increased by 143% to £50.676m (1999, £20.863m) * Pre-tax profit before goodwill: increased by 120% to £5.756m (1999, £2.616m) * Dividend: increased by 32% to 5 pence for the year (1999, 3.8 pence) * Earnings per share before goodwill: increased by 92% to 26.04 pence (1999, 13.56 pence) * Acquisition: A & C Black bought for £16.4m in July * Harry Potter: Publication of fastest-selling book in history * Continuing pipeline of bestsellers in 2000: Joanna Trollope: Marrying the Mistress, Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidential, Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin, Michael Ondaatje: Anil's Ghost * Awards: Booker Prize: The Blind Assassin; Publisher of the Year for second year in a row at the British Book Awards * Internet: Over 1 million visitors in the first month to Harry Potter pages - Bloomsburymagazine.com * USA: Major New York Times Bestseller for Bloomsbury USA - Kitchen Confidential on list for 13 weeks * Backlist revenue: backlist sales of books excluding A&C Black increased 156% to £15.624m (1999, £6.103m) Nigel Newton, Chairman, Bloomsbury Publishing, commenting on the company's outlook for the future, said: 'Our strong year has spurred us on to seek greater growth for the future. The increased stability of our year-on-year earnings allows us to focus even more resources on the longer-term strategy of further increasing sales and profitability from our existing operations, and new publishing-related ventures. The board has every confidence in the prospects of the company and fully anticipates strong growth in the years ahead.' There will be an analyst presentation today at 9.30 a.m. at Beeson Gregory, The Registry, Royal Mint Court, London EC3N. For further information, please contact: Nigel Newton, Chairman, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 020 7494 2111 Simon Forrest/Alexandra Scrimgeour, Impact Consultancy 020 7479 4770 CHAIRMAN'S STATEMENT Overview I am delighted to report an excellent year for the company, a year which saw significant growth in profits and turnover; a major acquisition; strong book sales across all areas; and the mounting value of back-catalogue income as we continue to accumulate significant content rights, both literary and electronic. It was also a year which saw commercial success matched by literary achievement: most visibly by Margaret Atwood winning The Booker Prize as well as the company winning Publisher of the Year Award for the second time. The highlights of 2000, which include 6 months figures for A & C Black, are: O Turnover up 143% to £50.676m (2000: £20.863m) O Profit before tax and goodwill up 120% to £5.756m (2000: £2.616m) O Earnings per share before goodwill increased by 92% to 26.04 pence (1999: 13.56 pence) O Dividend increased by 32% to 5 pence for the year (1999: 3.8 pence) O Acquisition of reference publishers A & C Black O Launch of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire - the fastest selling book in history O Booker Prize winner with The Blind Assassin O Launch of new website, Bloomsburymagazine.com O Growing success of Bloomsbury USA O Backlist revenues excluding A & C Black increased 156% to £15.624m (1999: £6.103m) Review of Operations Reference & Electronic Media Division Bloomsbury's Reference and Electronic Media Division had a year of strong achievement as we extended our Microsoft partnership, forged new content-supply relationships with major media companies and launched innovative new reference projects. Our activities in this area are creating a substantial asset base in the shape of the highly flexible databases, which we own in perpetuity. The Encarta World English Dictionary is now firmly established as a leading reference text with sales continuing to grow, especially in export territories. During the year we delivered to Microsoft an additional 10,000 head-words to the Encarta World English Dictionary, bringing the total to 100,000. We also completed and delivered to Microsoft the Encarta Quotations database. The print edition of this was published by Bloomsbury, world-wide in October 2000. The electronic edition of the Encarta Thesaurus was also delivered and published by Microsoft in 2000 with the print edition to be published by Bloomsbury in May 2001. The Encarta Concise Dictionary, at the lower price point of £17.99 and aimed at the mass market, will be launched in August 2001. On the content creation side, significant progress was made on the ELT (English Language Teaching) Dictionary Database project with Macmillan, which is on schedule for delivery mid 2001. We are utilising the Internet to bring together a team of over 100 specialist lexicographers, editors and advisers around the world, a system we developed with the Encarta World English Dictionary project. One of the most exciting developments of the year was the Business Encyclopedia project, being created in conjunction with Perseus Books in the US. The electronic potential for this is enormous, providing a one-stop shop for those with an interest in the world of business or finance. We have recently licensed sections of this database to the Economist.com on a non-exclusive basis for an 18-month period, demonstrating how we can extract additional value from this resource. The project is due for completion in December 2002 and the Economist.com licence is one of a number of electronic deals we aim to set-up using the material from this database. October 2000 also saw the launch of bloomsburymagazine.com, an online community site aimed at everyone interested in reading, writing, and books. Its features include a literary magazine, material for reading groups, a research centre with over four million words of reference text and down-loadable readers' courses. It also includes a book-selling service offering a full range of the 1.25 million books which are currently in print in the UK from all publishers, not only Bloomsbury. The primary focus of this site is to extend the Bloomsbury brand, creating an online following that will become a source of income through book buying, particularly from overseas. Book Division 2000 was a very successful year for the book division with several of our major novelists publishing new titles. We got off to a spectacular start with the publication of the new Joanna Trollope, Marrying the Mistress, which soon broke her own previous sales records; the new Michael Ondaatje (author of The English Patient), Anil's Ghost followed in May and we closed the year with the winning of the Booker Prize by Margaret Atwood for The Blind Assassin. Non-fiction highlights included Alasdair Grays's The Book of Prefaces, William Shawcross' account of the UN, Deliver Us from Evil, and the best-selling Kitchen Confidential. The Bloomsbury paperback list is continuing to build market share. Notable successes with backlist titles in 2000 include The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif , The Tulip by Anna Pavord, East of the Mountains and Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on July 8th to widespread acclaim and huge sales. Not only was this one of the biggest hardback first print-runs ever, but also it triggered substantial extra sales of the first three books in the series. Bloomsbury owns the licence for the full term of copyright to the world English language rights, excluding the USA, to all four Harry Potter titles. The series is now established (with three more books yet to be published) as a classic with a long-term life. The series is being compared to other classics such as Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, which have had huge sales over many decades. Other highlights of the children's publishing year included the publication of Holes by Louis Sacher, which became a bestseller. Tractor and Digger, The Selfish Crocodile, Supposing, and Face, all children's backlist titles, are all selling as strongly now as they did in their first year of publication. We also continued to build a strong portfolio of foreign co-edition deals with a large edition sold of the picture book Rufferella to Scholastic USA and three foreign language editions of Maybe One Day and Old Bob's Brown Bear. Backlist income from illustrated co-editions is steadily growing with books such as What!, having reprinted five times in the US alone. One of the key strategies for Bloomsbury is to broaden the base on which we exploit our intellectual property. As part of that strategy, we acquired from Warner Brothers licensing rights to produce an extensive range of stationery products related to Harry Potter. This venture operates within our existing overhead structure, and the investment cost is modest. We are confident that this will be a good new revenue stream for the company in the future, and its success will pave the way for more deals for other books in our children's list. Bloomsbury USA is growing ahead of our expectations. Alan Wherry, one of the four founders of Bloomsbury, now lives full time in New York overseeing the expansion of the American operation. The company now has a strong American publishing list distinguished by authors like Tony Bourdain, Ben Cheever, Lucy Grearly, and Mat Johnson. It also saw a strengthening of the editorial and marketing team with senior executives joining us from some of the best publishing houses in the US. The biggest title of the year was Kitchen Confidential, a book we commissioned from Tony Bourdain, one of New York's leading chefs. It stayed on the bestseller list for 13 weeks enjoying massive publicity and huge worldwide sales with translation rights sold by us to nine countries. Other successes included Into the Arms of Strangers, which was jointly acquired in the US and UK and was made into an Oscar-winning documentary feature. A & C Black In July, we acquired A & C Black, the leading UK reference publisher, for £ 16.433 million. The acquisition represented an excellent fit for the company and I am pleased to say we are on track for a successful integration that retains A & C Black's unique culture. The rationale for the acquisition was very clear: A & C Black's strong specialist reference list complements Bloomsbury's own list; there are clear growth opportunities from importing Bloomsbury's overseas sales and marketing systems; there is potential to exploit many of A & C Black titles electronically (using our skills and contacts in sub-licensing to third-parties); A & C Black brings a high percentage of regular repeat backlist revenue and Bloomsbury will benefit from A & C Black's representation in UK schools. In October this year, we will be moving A & C Black's export business from some of its sole agency set-ups to the Penguin International sales force. Bloomsbury made a similar move to Penguin International in 1999, and the uplift in the sales to open markets was considerable. In October A & C Black acquired the list of Pica Press, making it the world leader in ornithology books. The acquisition brought some valuable new titles including the North American Bird Guide, which is set to become a long-term classic of its genre. Raptors of the World, which is due to be published in 2001, is also set to be a bestseller in its class. Our nautical imprint Adlard Coles continues its dominant position in the sailing market, partly due to the success of a new line of high-priced luxury sailing books. Other publishing highlights included Marathon Running by Richard Nerurkar, and The Internet: A Writers' Guide, with accompanying internet site and constantly updated links to other writing sites on the web. In the children's and educational list, A & C Black continued to build on the success of its photocopiable books for schools, and their fiction list continues to establish itself well in the market. The annual publications, Who's Who, The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook and The Independent Schools Year Book have all performed well. Who's Who is currently being digitised for completion in 2001. We intend to licence the Who's Who database online to a number of international parties on a short-term non-exclusive basis, for inclusion in their existing web-sites. This allows us to remain flexible, and take advantage of the constantly changing Internet business environment. We are currently exploring other electronic licensing opportunities for our reference list and are already generating significant new, high-margin revenues. Portfolio management During the year our portfolio approach to developing revenue streams in our business became even more pronounced. We now have a wide range of different intellectual property rights with different development time-scales. Some of these rights such as the electronic reference databases, require sizeable development investment, and are very flexible on completion. New authors are lower cost but are often just the beginning of a longer process of developing a new writer. Established authors, who often require bigger advances, move to profit far more quickly and are consistently successful with excellent back-catalogue earnings. Children's books (with the exception of Harry Potter) often sell in smaller numbers but find new audiences every few years. We are extending the reach of these rights by acquiring film rights from authors, buying US and UK rights where appropriate and for the first time this year investing in merchandising rights. Employees The board would like to thank the employees of both Bloomsbury and A & C Black for all their work over the last year. In the case of Bloomsbury, there has been a significant increase in workload. During this period employees have coped well, maintaining high standards. In the case of A & C Black, the acquisition was taken in its stride and a record year was achieved. Such professionalism and dedication is one of the company's most precious assets. In 1999, we had granted share options to all employees in Bloomsbury. In 2000, we granted share options to all employees in A & C Black. We have seen great benefits from this. Dividend The directors recommend a final dividend of 4 pence per share (1999: 3.0 pence per share) making a total of 5 pence per share (1999: 3.8 pence per share) for the year. This represents a 31.6% increase in dividend reflecting a more progressive dividend policy, a consequence of the company's increasing profitability. However, the dividend policy will still reflect the need to invest in developing authors, the acquisition of international rights, the development of new databases and other essential actions, all important steps to ensuring continued growth in profits in the years ahead. The final dividend will be payable on 4 July 2001 to Ordinary Shareholders on the register at the close of business on 18 May 2001. Prospects The future looks bright for Bloomsbury. Harry Potter is a long-term asset that will continue to generate significant earnings well into the future. In the short term the film of book 1, due for release at the end of the year, will trigger a huge awakening of interest among those who have yet to read the books, expanding the market significantly. Our overseas ambitions are also clearly bearing fruit with the success of Bloomsbury USA, allowing us the opportunity to exploit rights on both sides of the Atlantic. Our content assets continue to grow, both in literary and electronic format, with rights that combine long-term potential with high margin. Over the next twelve months, we will see more visibly the great benefits which the acquisition of A & C Black will bring. Our strong year has spurred us on to seek greater growth for the future. The increased stability of our year-on-year earnings allows us to focus even more resources on the longer-term strategy of further increasing sales and profitability from our existing operations, and new publishing-related ventures. The board has every confidence in the prospects of the company, and fully anticipates strong growth in the years ahead. Nigel Newton Chairman 28th March 2001 FINANCIAL REVIEW I am delighted to report an excellent set of results for the group for 2000. Turnover, including £4.123m from A & C Black, which was acquired during the year, increased by 142.9% to £50.676m (1999, £20.863m). The growth in the turnover was fuelled by a strong frontlist publishing programme, including titles from Joanna Trollope, Marrying the Mistress, Tony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential, Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, and JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Revenues from backlist titles excluding A & C Black, increased 156% to £15.624m (1999, £6.103m). Gross profit, which included £2.001m from A & C Black, increased by 97.4% to £21.289m (1999, £ 10.783m). Book sales increased at a far greater rate than higher margin rights sales. This led to a reduction in the gross profit margin to 42.0% (1999, 51.7%). Marketing and distribution costs, which include £0.813m from A & C Black increased by 124.7% to £7.657m (1999, £3.407m). Marketing costs increased as a result of major marketing campaigns on books such as The Blind Assassin, Marrying the Mistress, The Harry Potter series, Kitchen Confidential and the Encarta World English Dictionary. Distribution costs are a variable cost, which has increased in line with turnover. Marketing and distribution costs as a percentage of sales, however, have reduced to 15.1% (1999, 16.3%). Administrative costs, which include £0.701m of costs from A & C Black, increased by 78.7% to £7.953m (1999, £4.450m). Included in these costs is the accrual for employer's National Insurance contributions on the 1994 Unapproved Executive Share Option Scheme of £0.555m. Additional staff have been taken on during the year, by Bloomsbury USA to manage the increased size of the list, and in the UK to manage new operations such as bloomsburymagazine.com. Additional office space has been taken on in Soho Square to accommodate the increase in number of UK-based employees in the group. There is also a variable element to our administrative expenses, which has increased as a result of the increase in turnover. Operating profit, which includes £0.487m operating profit from A & C Black, increased by 83.8% to £5.380m (1999, £ 2.926m). Operating profit, before the deduction of goodwill of £0.299m (1999, nil), increased by 94.1% to £5.679m (1999, £2.926m). Bloomsbury generated a net interest receivable for the year of £0.077m (1999, payable of £0.310m). £0.016m of the interest receivable was generated by A & C Black. The interest earned by the group was from cash generated from operating activities during the year and £1.579m raised from the placing at the time of the acquisition of A & C Black to purchase any minority interest in the company. Following the publication of FRS19 in December 2000, the directors have decided to implement the provisions of this Standard. As a consequence, the 1999 comparative figures have been restated as a prior year adjustment, in order to make full provision for all timing differences at that date. The effective tax rate for the year takes account of disallowable costs such as the goodwill write-off of £0.299m. Profit after tax increased by 106.6% to £ 3.730m (1999, £1.805m). Basic earnings per share before goodwill increased by 92.04% to 26.04 pence (1999, 13.56 pence). Fully diluted earnings per share increased by 86.65% to 24.6 pence (1999, 13.18 pence). A & C Black On 3rd July 2000, Bloomsbury acquired the entire share capital of A & C Black Plc for a consideration of £16.433m. The acquisition represents part of our strategy to acquire intellectual property for electronic and print publication. Although cost savings have been identified following the acquisition, the main benefit to the group will be to incorporate elements of Bloomsbury's sales, marketing and database development skills to increase the sales growth rate. 2,766,592 new shares in Bloomsbury were issued, raising a total of £18.536m to fund the acquisition, purchase any minority interest, and cover the costs incurred on the acquisition. Balance sheet The acquisition of A & C Black accounted for the stock increase at the end of the year to £11.499m (1999, 9.507m). A & C Black's stock and work in progress at the end of the year was £2.730m. In Bloomsbury, work in progress increased by 1.4% to £5.789m (1999, £5.710m). Finished stocks in Bloomsbury decreased by 21.8% to £2.931m (1992, £3.750m). Stock was higher at the end of 1999, as increased print runs had been commissioned on our top selling titles to ensure that adequate stock levels were maintained over the extended year-end holiday break, and to minimise the impact of any potential problems arising from the ' millennium-bug' issue. Stock has also decreased as part of our ongoing policy to reduce the stock holding of some of our older slow moving titles. Trade debtors which includes £2.116m from A & C Black increased by 181.3% to £ 21.320m (1999, £7.580m). Trade debtors, excluding A & C Black, increased by 153.4% to £19.204m (1999, £7.580m) as a result of strong second half trading in the UK and export markets. UK sales increased by 166.1% to £33.410m (1999, £12.557m). Export sales increased 107.9% to £17.266m (1999, £8.306m). Prepayments and accrued income, which includes £1.120m from A & C Black, reduced by 17.2% to £12.123m (1999, £14.647m) as a result of increased backlist revenues and sub-licence income. Accruals and deferred income, which included £0.857m from A & C Black, increased 178.6% to £12.000m (1999, £ 4.308m). Royalties payable to authors are included here, and the liability is a reflection of the increase in turnover. For the group to grow organically, considerable investment is required in the development of electronic reference databases, and the acquisition of new books for future years' publishing programmes. Cash generated by sub-licence rights sales and the sale of books continues to grow and current cash flow now more than covers our working capital requirements. We now have in place additional resources to look at the development of new reference databases, investing much further ahead with our titles along with acquiring a much broader base of rights, i.e. world rights including film and merchandising. This enables us to better predict the rate of growth of the group in future years. Even though additional money is being invested in more long-term projects, the group has generated a net cash inflow from operating activities of £4.797m (1999, cash outflow £0.807m). Of this, there is a £0.066m cash outflow relating to A & C Black which was due to the funding of their cost of the acquisition, and the purchase of the assets of a small Ornithology list, Pica Press, for £0.340m. Through a combination of the cash generated from operating activities and the net proceeds from the placing in connection with the acquisition of A & C Black, the group had a net cash position of £5.483m (1999, net debt of £0.471m). Included in the cash at bank and in hand is £ 1.989m set aside for those shareholders in A & C Black who elected for loan notes instead of Bloomsbury shares or cash. Shareholders' funds At 31 December 2000, shareholders' funds stood at £38.747m (1999, £18.009m). The increase was due to the retained earnings of £2.886m (1999, £1.276m), share options exercised, and the net proceeds from the placing in connection with the acquisition of A & C Black. Investor relations The Internet is the perfect medium for disseminating information to shareholders who are interested in finding out more about Bloomsbury. During 2000, we developed a corporate site, linked to bloomsburymagazine.com. Its URL is www.bloomsbury-ir.co.uk and gives detailed information on the company's strategy, structure, corporate history, successes to date, financial information, share price graph, announcements, media research notes and much more. The site will be continually updated with all the latest developments in the company. Strategy Bloomsbury has moved into a new phase of growth. The increasing returns from previous years' investments has put us in a position whereby we now have surplus cash for investment. We now own a portfolio of rights to valuable books and reference databases, which will generate revenues for many years to come. Acquiring and developing a broader range of rights in house for exploitation in electronic or print form is the key to future growth. We have done this successfully with the reference databases, adult paperbacks, US list, and the children's list, to date. Acquiring some of the merchandising rights to Harry Potter is a new area for Bloomsbury and, if successful, could be a significant revenue stream in the coming years. With the increased profile of the group and two full time commissioning editors in the US, we are now seeing all the major new US books that are submitted to the major publishers in the US. Providing these books are economically viable, we now have the resources to acquire world rights to most of these, which bodes well for the future success of Bloomsbury USA and indeed the UK. The cash we have generated will be used wisely, and will only be spent if the right opportunities arise. Some of the funds are already being used for the electronic development of A & C Black's huge library of content, starting with Who's Who, which will be completed in 2001. Going concern Having made enquiries, the directors have a reasonable expectation that the Company and the Group as a whole has adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. For this reason, they continue to adopt the going concern basis in preparing the accounts. Colin Adams ACA Finance Director 28 March 2001 CONSOLIDATED PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT for the year ended 31 December 2000 Notes 2000 2000 2000 1999 Continuing as operations Acquisitions Total restated £'000 £'000 £'000 £'000 Turnover 2 46,553 4,123 50,676 20,863 Cost of sales (27,265) (2,122)(29,387) (10,080) ______ ______ ______ ______ Gross profit 19,288 2,001 21,289 10,783 Marketing and distribution (6,844) (813) (7,657) (3,407) costs Admin. Expenses: - goodwill - (299) (299) - - other (7,252) (701) (7,953) (4,450) ______ ______ ______ ______ Operating profit 5,192 188 5,380 2,926 ______ ______ Net interest receivable/ 77 (310) (payable) ______ ______ Profit on ordinary activities 5,457 2,616 before taxation Taxation on profit on ordinary (1,727) (811) activities ______ ______ Profit on ordinary activities 3,730 1,805 after taxation Dividends 3 (844) ( 529) ______ ______ Profit for the financial year transferred to reserves 2,886 1,276 _____ _____ Basic earnings per share 4 24.11p 13.56p ______ ______ Diluted earnings per share 4 22.78p 13.18p ______ ______ Basic earnings per share before 4 26.04p 13.56p goodwill ______ ______ Diluted earnings per share 4 24.60p 13.18p before goodwill ______ ______ Notes All turnover and results arose from continuing operations. There were no recognised gains or losses in either year other than the profit for the year. CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET at 31 December 2000 2000 1999 as restated £'000 £'000 Fixed assets: Intangible assets 11,667 - Tangible assets 1,097 371 ______ ______ 12,764 371 Current assets: Stocks 11,499 9,507 Debtors due within one year 28,680 17,239 Debtors due after more than one year 5,096 5,082 Cash at bank and in hand 7,472 554 ______ ______ 52,747 32,382 Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 23,666 11,741 ______ ______ Net current assets 29,081 20,641 ______ ______ Total assets less current liabilities 41,845 21,012 Creditors: amounts falling due after more than one year 1,095 1,926 Provisions for liabilities and charges 2,003 1,077 ______ ______ 38,747 18,009 ______ ______ Equity capital and reserves: Called up share capital 844 700 Share premium account 31,228 13,520 Capital redemption reserve 9 9 Profit and loss account 6,666 3,780 ______ ______ Total shareholders' funds 38,747 18,009 ______ ______ The financial statements were approved by the Board of Directors on 28 March 2001. J N Newton Director C R Adams Director CONSOLIDATED CASH FLOW STATEMENT for the year ended 31 December 2000 2000 1999 as restated £'000 £'000 Net cash inflow / (outflow) from operating activities 4,797 (807) Returns on investments and servicing of finance Interest paid (131) (323) Interest received 208 4 ______ ______ Net cash inflow / (outflow) from returns on investments and servicing of finance 77 (319) Taxation Tax paid (90) (116) Capital expenditure Purchase of fixed assets (358) (178) Sale of fixed assets 14 - ______ ______ (344) (178) Acquisitions Purchase of subsidiary undertaking (16,433) - Net cash acquired with subsidiary 733 - ______ ______ (15,700) - Equity dividends paid (590) (491) Financing Issue of ordinary share capital (net of expenses) 17,737 - Loan notes in connection with acquisition 1,989 - Repayment of loans (1,025) (413) Share options exercised 67 120 Shares placed (net of expenses) - 3,263 ______ ______ Net cash inflow 18,768 2,970 ______ ______ Increase in cash 6,918 1,059 _____ _____ NOTES 1. The above financial information does not constitute statutory accounts as defined in section 240 of the Companies Act 1985. The above figures for the year ended 31 December 2000 are an abridged version of the Company's audited accounts which will be reported on by the Company's auditors before despatch to the shareholders and filing with the Registrar of Companies. 2. Geographical analysis of turnover The directors regard the Group's business as a single segment. Its profit and turnover arises principally in the United Kingdom where its assets are located. The table below analyses turnover by destination: 2000 1999 £'000 £'000 as restated United Kingdom 33,410 12,557 North America 4,367 4,975 Continental Europe 6,572 1,338 Australasia 4,697 1,286 Others 1,630 707 _______ _______ 50,676 20,863 _______ _______ Sales in North America included the turnover from Bloomsbury USA, co-edition sales and the sale of rights and licences to third parties. In the directors' opinion, disclosure of the analysis of the profit before tax by geographical segment would be seriously prejudicial to the Group. 3. Dividends 2000 1999 £'000 £'000 as restated Interim, paid 20 November 2000 168 107 Final proposed 4.0p per share 676 422 ______ ______ 844 529 ______ ______ 4. Earnings per share Basic earnings per share has been calculated by reference to earnings of £ 3,730,000 (1999 as restated, £1,805,000) and a weighted average number of Ordinary Shares in issue of 15,470,759 (1999 as restated, 13,314,273). The diluted earnings per share has been calculated by reference to a weighted average number of Ordinary Shares in issue of 16,377,783 (1999 as restated, 13,699,566). Basic and diluted earnings per share excluding goodwill have been calculated by reference to earnings of £4,029,000 (1999 as restated, £ 1,805,000). 5. Prior year adjustment A prior year adjustment has been made in respect of deferred tax not previously provided in accordance with Statement of Standard Accounting Practice 15. The Company has changed its policy to comply with the full provision requirements of Financial Reporting Standard 19. As a consequence, the deferred tax not provided at 31 December 1999 has been dealt with as a prior year adjustment. 6. Annual General Meeting The Annual General Meeting will be held at 12 noon on Thursday 28th June 2001 at 38 Soho Square, London W1D 3HB. 7. Report and Accounts Copies of the Report and Accounts will be circulated to shareholders shortly and may be obtained after the posting date from the Company Secretary, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 38 Soho Square, London W1D 3HB.

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